Last round was pretty good as far as player numbers go, actually. A 4-round high! Woo!

How many players does PA really need? Who knows. As long as PA Team doesn't kill the game, it'll keep going. If "that other game" is any indication, 100 players can be enough.

Enjoy gathering feedback, though. Hope it helps.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Well the question would be when did you quit then? Since its been declining that much planet count would suggest it aswell?
Now people might claim that the player count swings seasonaly, so one must compare the "pa season" towards last years

I actually think the extra 'Xmas round' has contributed a lot to the decline of the regular playerbsse.

Pa operated on a busy winter quiet summer programme and now the push to get 3 rounds in at winter is causing burn out. When you add to that that night launching is not something the majority can keep up over an extended period of time.

This is why part of my initial question was about the amount of players 'tagged'. 'Tagged' players are largely regular signups and that is then boosted by randoms. If there is little to no randoms anymore and as stated above 'tagged' players fall away slowly over time will there ever be a sustained upward revival?

Please don't derail the thread with stuff debated in two other active threads thanks.

That said it's also possible the massive variations in stats puts people off as well. A few rounds of unfavourable stats will kill morale and as I found once away from the game for a few rounds it's very easy to stay away completely

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

So now we're all required to refrain from mentioning that the player base is shrinking?

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

I guess not, but there might be a point somewhere in m0's post(if you elect to read something into the tone and motivation of Kaiba's post). Why would a retired player care if people elect to play with +-700 players(which has been fairly consistent lately)? I dunno the awnser, and i wouldn't care to speculate. To give some personal awnser to the initial question(which has little to do on AD, but i guess since PD has been dead for 30 rounds..): I'm enjoying this game as much as i did 4 rounds ago, or 40 rounds ago for that matter, probably more so. The variations isn't that big from round to round and there is usually several strong alliances competing which helps make things interesting. In respect to how big a playerbase this game needs; in my personal opinion the game is as good or bad as it has been since r10 and i don't experience much difference between 2k players and 700 players during the course of the round except for politics being slightly more restricted. Out of the box thinking from HC's and alliances disbanding and others forming or reforming keeps pols somewhat fluid tho.

I was pretty surprised at the low planet count as well. Honestly, having 5 weeks between rounds (Dec 4 - Jan 8) is terrible - havoc and the christmas round aren't taken seriously by many people (myself included) so I'm sure the holidays pull people away from the game.

I don't see why we can't just move havoc to havoc.planetarion.com and decrease the downtime in between rounds, and for christmas just pause the game for 1-3 days.
Alternatively plan the rounds so that you have 2 weeks for the Christmas round and have it go from Dec 18 to Jan 1 (2015 example), pausing only for Dec 25th.

To help with that, start using different round lengths - shorter rounds are better for war/roid swapping/xp, longer rounds are better for fencing/value play. Perhaps we would see more versatility in strategies with 5 week vs 8 week rounds?

PS. m0, it seems Kaiba is showing genuine concern for the game and is trying to get a discussion going, I don't see the need to tell him off for that.

I dont mind having community rounds, as long as they are interesting/fun. BowS always found new friends/players during havoc/community rounds wich ended up joining us.
Last round BF was playing, and they were worth 120 planets, and not all of their real players is playing this round.

You think I had the capabilities of running 120 planets? That would mean switching between servers 120 times a day. Get real man.

Many are quitting this game because nothing new happens and it's the same old repetitive play-style.

PS: I can't be bothered with your constant trolling Butcher. It's getting old and tiresome, so unless you're going to grace us with something constructive, then please don't act like an imbecile with one of your usual responses. I'll probably check your response next week.

I think it is less to do with numbers and more to do with how people behave, although more numbers make the game more competitive. If you want to have an open round you'll have one. If you want to maintain tedium and focus on lengthy grudges then it won't be as good.

The best planetarion has been and gone, because to make the game really interesting, it takes numbers, commitment, and geography. That doesn't mean you can't have a good game, but for players who have gone the distance it might be a bit of a disappointment if they come back as a casual player and realise there is no one to carry them, because quite a few people are doing the same. If you're enjoying it, keep going.

__________________
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

I have always thought the biggest influence of greater numbers is on the other side. Not only does more players make it more competitive at the top but probably much more importantly makes it less competitive at the bottom. Because there used to be so many more unaligned, and not particularly active players there used to be far less gal raiding per player. It used to be possible to play casually and only worry about being raided once a week, these days most will be lucky to be raided less than three times a week making the game far more stressful and as a result the casual players either have to get hardcore or leave.

__________________
Proud to have been TGV!
aargh! died in Jenova! | idled in ROCK | disappointed in Audentes | been Roguish | p-p-previously a p-p-p3nguinAscendancy

I have always thought the biggest influence of greater numbers is on the other side. Not only does more players make it more competitive at the top but probably much more importantly makes it less competitive at the bottom. Because there used to be so many more unaligned, and not particularly active players there used to be far less gal raiding per player. It used to be possible to play casually and only worry about being raided once a week, these days most will be lucky to be raided less than three times a week making the game far more stressful and as a result the casual players either have to get hardcore or leave.

This is very true.
The pace of the game feels way higher now, than ever before.

Is your real life set up in a way that allows you to be awake to defend at ungodly hours?

I remember when I worked nights (finishing at 2am) that I found this game awesome, but when i switched to a 7am start it was vastly less enjoyable and more stressful, which resulted in vastly more conflict on irc

I have always thought the biggest influence of greater numbers is on the other side. Not only does more players make it more competitive at the top but probably much more importantly makes it less competitive at the bottom. Because there used to be so many more unaligned, and not particularly active players there used to be far less gal raiding per player. It used to be possible to play casually and only worry about being raided once a week, these days most will be lucky to be raided less than three times a week making the game far more stressful and as a result the casual players either have to get hardcore or leave.

Don't disagree with that.

__________________
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

Okay any more cheating accusations are off limits unless there's been actual planet closures. Get personal and I won't take kindly to it either. Don't particularly want to be hefty with the moderating but little option. Please continue.

__________________
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

I don't see why we can't just move havoc to havoc.planetarion.com and decrease the downtime in between rounds, and for christmas just pause the game for 1-3 days.
Alternatively plan the rounds so that you have 2 weeks for the Christmas round and have it go from Dec 18 to Jan 1 (2015 example), pausing only for Dec 25th.

Agreed. In fact I posted a similar objection to the waste of time over Christmas (and between rounds) some time back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrikc

To help with that, start using different round lengths - shorter rounds are better for war/roid swapping/xp, longer rounds are better for fencing/value play. Perhaps we would see more versatility in strategies with 5 week vs 8 week rounds?

I agree that we might see some variation in strategy but I think you have it backwards. The shorter the round, the less likely it would be that any serious wars would be fought. Five weeks simply wouldn't allow time for a top alliance to recover from any significant losses so the winner would always be an alliance which avoided fighting.

__________________
Amnion (aka The Arcane Chas of Arcania) - Playing PA under those and other pseudonyms every genuine round since Round 2. Most recently (and insignificantly):
Green Shoots of Recovery R68 | Another Round of Same Old R69 | The End of The Line R70
Keepers of The House R71 | The Way of His Saints R72 | Certain of Nothing R73
The Dance of Idiots R74 | Back of Beyond R75 | Mentor of Arisia R76
Certainty of Indecision 7:4:4 R77 | Chamber of Mazarbul 4:2:6 R78 | Defence of the Realm 7:9:3 R79

I like the idea of a flexible end of round. Meaning the End of round is announced at pt 979(1 week out from a 7 week round[standard])as either being 7 weeks, 8 weeks etc....

Doing it this way would never work, an alliance would have to play the first 6 weeks like it was a 7 week round and that would affect politics/wars etc and always make the 8th week dull.

This game struggles to keep people interested for 7 weeks as it, the prospect of av random 8th or 9th week with havoc bolted on the end would severely damage signups, just like the gap between round starts has here.

If you want to randomise the end then the overall round set up has to change. Maybe having 4 weeks of 1 hr ticks and then 1-2 weeks of 30 mins ticks would be better, like rushing to a conclusion and allowing lots of changes in the final part of the round

I like variable round lengths, but if they're introduced, they need to be determined by events in the game. If there's a neck-and-neck race, the round can be longer. If an alliance is 50% ahead from tick 400 onwards, the round should be shorter. This should be determined algorithmically, without human intervention.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

But then you get the issue that if two alliances are neck and neck and the rest are cut adrift that we get an extra two weeks then maybe 75% have given up, with 2 weeks of havoc bolted on and a week of signups that's a potential 5 weeks between active play for the majority, and we get more ppl not sign up because they went and found something else in that 5 weeks

What do you mean by 'cut adrift'? If you mean they can no longer win, that is always the case with all but 2-3 of the alliances playing. If you mean they've stopped playing, then I'd need to know why.

I am in favour of cutting down on the amount of downtime by either removing havoc altogether, or (Patrikc's suggestion) overlapping it with signups for the next round.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

What do you mean by 'cut adrift'? If you mean they can no longer win, that is always the case with all but 2-3 of the alliances playing. If you mean they've stopped playing, then I'd need to know why.

I am in favour of cutting down on the amount of downtime by either removing havoc altogether, or (Patrikc's suggestion) overlapping it with signups for the next round.

Yes I meant can not win. From my personal experience in a multitude of alliances once the win is not achievable or severely hard graft to pull off half the alliance goes 'awol' this can be as early as tick 500 sometimes.

With your non human regulator of round length we could end up with a round that runs 8-9 weeks yet nothing happens conflict wise, those alliance could be napped and roid farming 3-6 alliances whilst staying within 10-15 mill of each other. Having a potential 800 ticks of dead game for the majority, along with a minimum downtime of 2 weeks would push over 1100 ticks inbetween some people's active play. That is not good no matter which way you slice it

From my personal experience in a multitude of alliances once the win is not achievable or severely hard graft to pull off half the alliance goes 'awol' this can be as early as tick 500 sometimes.

Keep in mind, even at tick 0 up to three quarters of the player base realistically have no chance of winning. I find it hard to believe that a significant fraction of these people care that much about winning. If they did, they would join Ultores, or Black Flag, or p3nguins, which are the only alliances who have won in the past 8 rounds. That's only 180 people. The remaining 520 people should not care if they were 10% behind, or 30% behind, or 50% behind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiba

With your non human regulator of round length we could end up with a round that runs 8-9 weeks yet nothing happens conflict wise, those alliance could be napped and roid farming 3-6 alliances whilst staying within 10-15 mill of each other. Having a potential 800 ticks of dead game for the majority, along with a minimum downtime of 2 weeks would push over 1100 ticks inbetween some people's active play. That is not good no matter which way you slice it

I agree your scenario is possible, but it could go the other way, too. We could end up with a round that ends after 5 weeks, when one alliance has clearly won very early on and there's no real point in waiting out the remaining weeks. Or a round with 3 alliances within shouting distance of each other, each with their own cronies, fighting it out hardcore until week 8 or 9. The trick would be to pick a set of metrics such that these scenarios are more likely to play out than the type you sketch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Munkee

Why not just havoc the final week.

You call it havoc, 90%(?) of the player base calls it downtime. You're basically suggesting making the round a week shorter. Patrikc has provided a solid reason not to do that.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Honestly, a game in which you can reliably plan for 900 or 1300 ticks in advance doesn't sound very dynamic (ie good) to me.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

PA should not be so straightforward that your plans always work, though, and certainly not 2 months in advance.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Yeah, well, if you think I'm just going to let that kind of thing slide, you've got another thing coming.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

1) Keep going as is, do nothing, accept the slow decline until the player base suddenly no longer supports the game and it collapses. Risk-free and cheap.

2) Do something radical, gamble that the changes will revitalize the game. Risky and expensive.

I don't blame them for not picking option 2.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Only if you really want to save PA. Badly enough to invest tens of thousands of insert-currency-here.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

I guess PA's biggest problem is the lack of information. No players get told what is actually going on in terms of development, nor is any information provided for whats going to happen going forward.

Lunar Lamp should as "caretaker/owner" really write up a bit informing about whats going to happen forward. Im playing another tick based game that recently has been taken over by some of the players playing the game, and they are really good with keeping the community up to date and informed about the deveolopment of the game, this has lead to a surge in interest and new players and hopefully a more enjoyable game for everyone.

I like the idea of a flexible end of round. Meaning the End of round is announced at pt 979(1 week out from a 7 week round[standard])as either being 7 weeks, 8 weeks etc....

The problem with this is the pricing model of planetarion. How can you justify a credit being worth more or less play time depending on "what's happening in the universe"?
I personally wouldn't buy a credit if I didn't know when the round starts how long that credit will be valid. I usually don't play in a top ally anyway so what goes on in the top part of the ranking means very little to me.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Well, you'd always have to have 9 weeks worth of credit before you could upgrade in any given round, otherwise, what happens when your credit runs out before the round ends?

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.